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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Combinational Treatment of Trichostatin A and Vitamin C Improves the Efficiency of Cloning Mice by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
Published on: April 26, 2018
Somatic cell cloning without micromanipulators
1Centre for Early Human Development, Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
Abstract:
Until now, micromanipulators have been regarded as indispensable for somatic cell nuclear transfer. This paper describes an improved zona-free nuclear transfer procedure with manual bisection of oocytes, selection of cytoplasts by Hoechst staining, and two-step fusion of somatic cells from primary granulosa cell cultures with two cytoplasts. Blastocyst rates in the three systems tested for zona-free embryo culture were 0%, 18%, and 36% for microdrops, well of the wells (WOW system), and microcapillaries (GO system), respectively. This simple, rapid, and inexpensive procedure may become a useful alternative to the existing techniques for somatic cell nuclear transfer for large-scale application of the technology.
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